Extractions of all kinds needed in Alabama

I’m feeling like a kid again but not in a good way. Actually, I’m feeling more like a 6-month-old baby, as I am teething. I’m not sure if this is weird or not — for a 39-year-old to just be “cutting” her wisdom teeth, if that is the proper term for it — but for some reason I am. A late bloomer, perhaps?

I have an appointment to see about getting them “extracted,” a word that sounds worse than “removed” but slightly better than “dug out,” which is how the procedure would be described in some parts of Alabama. Girl, you just need to get those things dug on out.

Ouch! Girl, I know.

Last night as these oh-so-wise-but-hateful teeth were trying to bust their way out of the prison of my gums and I couldn’t sleep, I ran into my kids’ bathroom and shuffled around their drawers like some sort of junkie, hoping to find the teething tablets or gel I used to shove in their mouths to try and quiet them when they were wailing with similar pains. But since they are now 4 and 6, all of those tonics had been thrown away. Sigh.

Eventually the Aleve kicked in and I was able to get some ZZZs, but I do now have a fresh appreciation for what they were going through just a few short years ago and I totally get why they were so ill and cranky. Since the “Great Wiseguy Tooth Eruption of 2016” began, everything has been getting under my skin, and I am not just talking about those things pushing through my tooth skin, aka gums.

So since I don’t have a teething ring, and that would probably look strange anyway, I’m just going to get fussy about some things all over this page.

Whaaaaaa!

The dumbest debate in America I don’t even care about what side you fall on in the debate over transgender bathroom laws, you’re entitled to your opinion, but this is really the dumbest discussion I have heard in American politics since Donald Trump assured us his hands weren’t small and neither was his “you know what.” (Not sure Politifact has verified that assertion yet.)

Defenders of these types of laws insist they are not discriminatory but simply designed to protect women from being subjected to a predator who may dress up as a “woman” and attack folks in the ladies room. So under this logic, presumably, it has been legal for these crazy bathroom predators to do this before all of these laws (like the one in North Carolina) were enacted.

So, my fellow ladies, I ask you, has this ever been a problem for you?

I have been using public restrooms for nearly four decades from sea to shining sea of this great nation and all over the world and let’s just say this is not the bathroom issue I worry about.

I would be more in favor of laws guaranteeing toilet paper, hand soap and paper towels, or issuing citations to those who sprinkle when they tinkle but who are decidedly not neat and who do not wipe the seat. And certainly there should be laws against non-flushing — I’m thinking misdemeanor failure to flush after tee-teeing and felony failure to flush for poo-pooing. (Don’t worry, moms, we will get a lobbyist to make sure children under 10 are exempt, as they seem biologically incapable of doing this.) And of course, the death penalty will be imposed for improper disposal of lady products, as it should be.

These are the real issues affecting women in American bathrooms. And have been for decades. Where have our brave legislators been all these years as we have been engaging in these bathroom wars? Who will stand up to the bathroom establishment and fight for us on the real issues? Jerry Carl, are you with us?

Apparently this has got folks so worked up, the KKK was distributing flyers in Midtown yards last weekend. Um, is anyone like me — more scared that Klansmen are out roaming the streets of MiMo on a Saturday night than this really ridiculous non-issue?

When “Scandal” is not just a show on ABC Resign, Gov. Bentley. Just resign. Please do it for the sake of the state you claim to love almost as much as Rebekah Caldwell Mason. You say you did nothing wrong, and while that seems highly unlikely given the nonstop revelations of shadiness (most recently the Franklin Haney connection and the paranoid confidentiality agreement-signing-palooza you had with your staff).

But … let’s just say you are innocent of everything except for engaging in really sad sexy talk over the phone with your Becky Boo, which is not illegal, just icky. It doesn’t matter! You have lost all credibility and the political capital necessary to get anything done.

And this is not just going to go away quietly. The statewide media is not going to let it go and having articles in national papers, like the Washington Post and most recently the New York Times, makes us a bigger laughing stock nationwide than we already are.

Every single one of those articles recounts this embarrassing mess, with all of its lurid, breast-holding details. It’s making people throw up a little in their mouths from Montgomery to Manhattan. Who is going to want to do business here with this craziness going on, not to mention the ones of your fellow scandal buddies, Mike and Roy? But at least their issues are finally being addressed in courts and commissions … hopefully.

Do the honorable thing and step down.

It’s the least you could do for me until I get these damn teeth out. Whaaaaaaaa!

About The Author

Ashley Trice is the editor and publisher of Lagniappe Weekly, which she co-founded with fellow publisher Rob Holbert in July 2002. Lagniappe has steadily grown from a 5,000 circulation biweekly into the 30,000 weekly newspaper it is today.
Originally from Jackson, Alabama, she graduated cum laude from the University of South Alabama in 2000 with a BA in communications and did some post graduate work at the University of Texas. She was in the 2011 class of Mobile Bay Monthly’s 40 Under 40. She is the recipient of the 2003 Award for Excellence in In-Depth Reporting by the Mobile Press Club and for Humorous Commentary by the Society of Professional Journalists in 2010 and 2018. In 2015, she won a national writing award presented by the Association of Alternative Newsmedia for “Best Column.” She won the Alabama Press Association Award for Best Editorial Column in 2017 and for Best Humor Column in 2018.
She is married to Frank Trice and they live in Midtown with their children Anders and Ellen, and dog Mattie.